Spike
A time-limited investigation used to reduce technical or product uncertainty before committing to a solution.
Plain English
Explore an unknown just enough to make a better decision.
In context
A spike should start with a question produce evidence or a recommendation and avoid silently becoming production implementation.
Example
“The team ran a spike to test whether the legacy export could meet the latency target.”
When you'll hear this
- backlog refinement
- architecture planning
- estimation
Common misunderstanding
A spike is for learning and does not automatically deliver production-ready code.
Also known as
research spiketechnical spike
Commonly used by
Related terms
Updated: 2026-08-27
